Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Will Seven Be My Lucky Number?

I am headed in to have a water ultrasound and receive my calendar for my 5th fresh IVF today (plus two FETs = 7).

I began my subconscious, yet ritualistic reading of fertility blogs yesterday, the re-hashing of past woes, and my assessment of both my mental state and outcome probabilities.

All of this mental preparation is in hopes of having a smoother ride each time I do a round. The reading (crying) over blogs yesterday was in hopes of getting the sadness out of my system prior to my calendar meeting. I've had epic weep-fests in front of the nurse at the last two. At the others I at least made it into the car before catastrophic meltdown commenced. Strangely, these meetings (which often don't even involve shots or medical evaluations) are the toughest I face in each cycle. There comes a point each time as I contemplate my new calendar where the grief surges up from my stomach to my throat and nearly chokes me - I am not being metaphorical here. This really happens. I think my body physically attempts to vomit out the pain.

This appointment is the hardest because I am acutely reminded of how terrible this really is, and as I sit in a shell-shocked state the little voice inside me screams "Why are you doing this again!"

I'll have to mentally rattle off as many answers as I can to that question over the next few hours. For now, the quick answer is I am hoping seven will be my lucky number.

About Me

I am a woman who, despite best intentions, modern medicine, bad advice, and a whole lotta good old fashioned trying, cannot reproduce. I am the genetic mule. These are the stories of my quest for a baby, my denial that I want a baby, and every other thing in between. I have found the best ways to cope with this particular brand of tough stuff is by sharing the sadness and looking for the humor in infertility with fellow mules. Sarcasm, dark humor, occasional bitching, and of course frequent crying all seem to help me. One thing that I have particular trouble with is HOPE. I'll work on it.
But here is something sweet for those of you tough enough to handle some of the H word. I did a google search of "genetic mule" just before I published my first post to make sure no clever person had stolen my name before I got to it, and the only thing that came up was this:
http://www.eyeondna.com/2007/07/31/genetic-impossibility-female-mule-gives-birth-to-foal/
Read it and weep. I did. I guess there is hope even for a mule like me.